SKILL SECTOR

2020 NOV 18

Mains   > Social justice   >   Human Resources   >   Skill Development

WHY IN NEWS:

  • The government in Oct 2020 unveiled a set of guidelines for recognising and regulating awarding bodies and assessment agencies, to improve the outcomes and standardise the processes under the Skill India Mission.

BACKGROUND:

  • India is one of the youngest nations in the world with more than 62% of its population in the working age group (15-59 years)
  • Our country presently faces a dual challenge of paucity of highly trained workforce, as well as non-employability of large sections of the conventionally educated youth, who possess little or no job skills
  • Skills need to be an integral part of employment and economic growth strategies to spur employability and productivity

STATISTICS:

  • According to NSSO Report 2011-12, India’s formally trained workforce stand at merely 2.3% in comparison to economies like South Korea which are at a mammoth share of 96%.
  • Moreover, around 33% of the formally trained youth was unemployed in 2017-18. Nearly a third of trained young men and more than a third of trained young women were unemployed.

ISSUES:

  • Public perception on skilling:
    • Social and traditional view that sees status as being inversely proportional to the degree to which one works with ones hands.
    • This can also be attributed to primeval and archaic ethos which compartmentalized the skilling landscape for several hundred years.
    • This unfortunate legacy has no moral, ethical and constitutional sanction in free India.
    • Nonetheless, this gets at times manifested in norms, attitudes and societal behavior.
  • Lack of economic incentive for skilling:
    • The proclivity of large sections of industry especially in the micro, small and medium sectors to treat skilled and unskilled persons at par, thereby depriving skilling of any meaningful economic incentive.
  • Failure of earlier schemes:
    • Skill development programmes of the Central Government over the years have been spread across more than 20 Ministries/Departments without any robust coordination and monitoring mechanism to ensure convergence
  • Lack of availability of good quality trainers:
    • The availability of good quality trainers is a major area of concern.
    • There is a lack of focus on development of trainer training programmes and career progression pathways for trainers have also not been defined
  • Lack of industry-employer linkages:
    • Efforts in the skill landscape have been largely devoid of industry/employer linkages until the last few years.
    • This has created gaps in terms of sectoral need and availability, competency required by employer and those possessed by a trainee etc.
  • Multiplicity in assessment and certification systems:
    • There is multiplicity in assessment and certification systems existing in the country which leads to inconsistent outcomes and causes confusion to the employers
  • Poor accreditation process:
    • The Quality Council of India (QCI) has often compromised with the quality of accreditation and affiliation process.
    • For example it had not followed the prescribed National Council for Vocational Training norms with respect to building infrastructure, equipment, and faculty
  • Dominance of informal/unorganised sector:
    • One of the biggest challenges of skill development in our country is that 93% of the workforce is in informal/unorganised sector.
    • Consequently it is difficult to map existing skills in the unorganised sector and gauge the skilling requirement in the sector.
    • On the other hand, the rate of job growth in informal sector is estimated to be twice that in formal sector.
  • Lower women participation:
    • Women constitute almost half of the demographic dividend.
    • The key challenge here is to increase their participation in the country’s labour force, which is directly linked to economic growth of the country
    • There has been a continuing fall in labour force participation rate of women from 33.3% to 26.5% in rural areas, and from 17.8% to 15.5% in urban areas between 2004 and 2011
  • Job creation for skilled youth is a major challenge:
    • The number of local entrepreneurs emerging every year in India is very low
    • In India, only 0.09 companies were registered for every 1,000 working age person - among the lowest rates of G20 countries
  • Absence of a sound national vocational education and training system:
    • Every developed country has a well-defined VET system with upward mobility. Our system is characterized by:
      • Educated person with no skills and skilled person with no education
      • Academically disadvantaged- School dropouts
      • Socially disadvantaged- SC/ST/Minorities
      • Low salary to skilled workers hence not aspirational.
      • This puts a stigma on Vocational Education & Training

GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES:

  • POLICIES AND FRAMEWORK:
    • Launch of the National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in 2015
    • National Skill Development Mission, launched in 2015
    • Reforms to Apprenticeship Act of 1961:
      • Government introduced a wide range of reforms to the Apprenticeship Act of 1961, to make it significantly easier for industry to take on much needed apprentices.
  • CAPACITY:
    • Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendra:
      • It is an initiative towards creation of “Model Training Centers” with standardized infrastructure for delivery of skill development training to be opened in every district of India
    • National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC):
      • NSDC is the implementation agency for skills training in the country.
      • NSDC aims to promote skill development by catalyzing the creation of large, quality and for-profit vocational institutions.
      • It acts as a catalyst in skill development by providing funding to enterprises, companies, and organizations that provide skill training.
    • National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS):
      • The scheme is aimed to increase the involvement of industries and employers in engaging youth as apprentices and providing on-the-job skill training to create a ready workforce.
      • The government reimburses part of stipend paid by the employer.
    • National Labour Market Information System (LMIS):
      • It is an integrated database, which contains socio-economic data in modules on (i) supply side skilled labour force statistics (ii) demand of skilled / unskilled labour (iii) market trends like wage structures and distribution, occupational shortages etc.
    • Industrial Training Centres (ITIs):
      • Aims to expand and modernize the existing Long-Term Training ecosystem in India.
    • Formation of District Skill Committees:
      • In order to get to the grass roots of the country with its various reforms and empower every citizen, the ministry has formed District Skill Committees (DSC) in all Districts as part of its Aspirational Skilling Abhiyaan
  • OUTREACH:
    • Skill India programme
      • It aims to train a minimum of 300 million skilled people by the year 2022.
    • Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana:
      • Mobilize youth to take up industry relevant skill training.
      • Targets to train 1 crore youth by 2020.
      • Recognizes and certifies prior learning
      • It has mandatory provisions for placement tracking.
    • STRIVE, 2017
      • Creating awareness through industry clusters, integrating and enhancing delivery quality of ITIs.
    • SWADES (Skilled Workers Arrival Database for Employment Support):
      • This is an initiative to conduct a skill mapping exercise of returning citizens under Vande Bharat Mission.
  • CONVERGENCE:
    • Skill India Portal:
      • It is a strong IT Platform that was launched to converge the skilling data of various Central Ministries, State Governments, Private Training Providers and Corporates on a single platform.
    • SANKALP, 2017
      • Creating convergence among all skill training activities, improving quality of skill development programmes, creating industry led and demand driven skill training capacity.
    • Skill India for farmers:
      • In order to develop skills and increase productive of the rural youth, Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare inked a MoU, under which MSDE will identify job roles to attract rural youth towards agriculture sector
    • MSDE is providing bridge training to electrical lineman involved with Saubhagya scheme which is initiated by the Ministry of Power
  • QUALITY:
    • Enforcement of National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF)
      • NSQF organizes qualifications according to a series of levels of knowledge, skills and aptitude
    • Market led Standards:
      • Sector Skills Councils (SSCs), as industry-led bodies, is strengthened by making them more representative, expanding their outreach and increasing their efficiency.
      • Development of National Occupational Standards (NOS) and Qualification Packs (QPs) for various job roles in a sector will remain the key responsibility of the SSCs
      • Development of standards by SSCs will be under the aegis of National Skills Qualification Committee (NSQC) under NSQF
    • Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)
      • RPL certifies the skills of people with prior experience or those trained informally.
      • RPL is the key instrument which can help map the existing skills in the unorganised sector and integrate the informal sector to the formal skilling landscape
      • Since 2016, the program has benefitted close to 12 lakh people across the country.
    • India Institute of Skills (IIS):
      • In order to bring a certain standard and stature in terms of quality and quantity to skills, MSDE recently announced setting up of the Indian Institute of Skills (IIS) in Mumbai
  • ASPIRATION AND ADVOCACY:
    • National Skills Universities and institutes are promoted in partnership with States as centres of excellence for skill development and training of trainers
    • Integration of skilling with formal education by introducing vocational training classes linked to the local economy
    • Integration of skilling with higher education with polytechnics offering NSQF aligned vocational courses and Bachelor of Vocational Studies degrees
    • Government promoted the use of certified, skilled manpower for its work and projects through enabling provisions in their contracts
    • The Prime Ministers Skill Development Fellow scheme is introduced to tap talented, young individuals who will work with the State and District administration to spread awareness about skill development
  • SPECIAL PROJECTS FOCUSED ON TRIBAL POPULATIONS:
    • Bru Project:
      • The project aims for skilling of   Bru tribe of Mizoram, who were displaced  and currently living in camps in the districts of North Tripura
    • Katkari primitive tribe:
      • Project aims to skill 1020 candidates from the Katkari tribe in Maharashtra.
    • Skill Development scheme for LWE districts:
      • It aims to bring back the Naxalites to the mainstream of our country by promoting skill development in 47 districts affected by Left Wing Extremism
  • INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION:
    • A Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) on Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) was signed between the Ministry of Skill Development and Government of Japan
    • India participated in Euro Skills 2018

CHALLENGES IN SKILL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES:

  • Low student mobilization:
    • The enrolment in skill institutes like ITIs, and polytechnics, remains low as compared to their enrolment capacity.
    • This is due to low awareness level among youths about the skill development programmes.
  • Issues with sector skill councils (findings of Sharda Prasad Committee):
    • Created 26 SSCs against 20 sectors. Many of them not even sectors such as Rubber, Plumbing, etc.
    • Agriculture is wrongly categorised as “organised” with large workforce
    • Governance of SSCs
      • Industry Associations in the Governing Councils in place of employers
      • Members of Trade Unions not represented on GCs
    • Functioning of SSCs
      • No arrangement for collection and compilation of skills needs of sectoral employers
      • No preparation of sectoral Skill Development plans and Skill Inventory
    • Overlap of Jurisdiction among SSCs
    • Conflict of Interest
      • The following cases of conflict of interest have found
        • One training company is an assessing body in several SSCs.
        • One CEO of an SSC is also a director in company funded by NSDC.

WAY FORWARD:

  • Need to depart from ‘one-size fits all’ approach
    • Different states in India face varied challenges in relation to demographics and skill development.
    • While State Skill Development Missions (SSDMs) have been launched in almost all States, there is an imminent need for capacity building and empowerment of SSDMs in many States in order to upscale quality skill development.
  • Focus on women:
    • Women constitute almost half of the demographic dividend.
    • Mainstreaming gender roles by skilling women in non-traditional roles and increasing gender sensitivity in the workplace will have a catalytic effect on productivity and be a smart economic decision.
  • Focus on an outcome-based approach towards quality skilling
  • Aligning supply of skilled workers with sectoral requirements
    • Address human resource needs by aligning supply of skilled workers with sectoral requirements of industry and the countrys strategic priorities including flagship programmes like Make in India.
  • Use of technology:
    • Establish an IT based information system for aggregating demand and supply of skilled workforce which can help in matching and connecting supply with demand.
  • Institution building:
    • Setup VETCs on the pattern of Engineering and Medical Colleges.
    • VETCs should run vocational courses in Engineering and Services Sector
  • Evaluation of Training Institutes:
    • NSDC should also develop some techniques to evaluate the performance of training institutes and encourage them to perform better.

PRACTICE QUESTION:

Q. “Skills need to be an integral part of economic growth strategies to spur employability and productivity”. Comment.